Given his actions, there can be no doubt that Donald Trump is bent on increasing the power and authority of the president well beyond the limits set by the Constitution. Virtually no Republican office-holder is courageous enough to resist this usurpation of power, despite their oath to “support and defend” the Constitution.

What does Trump intend to do with the power he is exercising without restraint? Clearly, he is not intending to use the government to improve the lives of ordinary people who aren’t rich and powerful.

■He will eliminate regulations that protect people from corporations that care only about their profits no matter who gets hurt.

■He will reduce funding for government programs that benefit ordinary people, including those that pay for vital medical research and public health initiatives.

■He will cut funding for the IRS so that it will be easier for the very wealthy to cheat on their taxes.

■He will cut the taxes of the very wealthy so that they can afford more luxuries.

■He will increase his own and his family’s wealth.

I fear that Trump and his minions will improve on the Republican strategy of voter suppression and gerrymandering to eliminate the voting rights of more and more citizens who oppose him to ensure that in the future, Republicans can’t lose elections and will maintain their power. I fear that he will stack the federal courts with more MAGA fanatics, as Republicans have stacked the Supreme Court, so that the federal courts won’t stand in his way.

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What he won’t do is use the power of the government to help ordinary people get such things as a decent education, decent health care, decent jobs, decent child care, a secure retirement, and decent food and shelter. His aims can be summed up as government by, for, and of the very wealthy.

Finally, he will continue his assault on truth and freedom of the press and punish those he considers to be his enemies. He will continue to try to make the ideas of the ruling class the ideas that rule our society.

Donald Trump seems to be America’s Mussolini. How many of us want America to have its own Mussolini?

Emmett Barcalow

Amherst